Episode 349 | Your Mission for the Remainder of 2026: Expanding Your Firm’s Capacity for Wealth and Freedom

There is a document somewhere in your firm that lists what everyone earns. Your paralegal is on it. Your associate is on it. The bookkeeper who comes in on Thursdays is on it. And near the bottom, or more likely nowhere at all, is you. What you take home isn't a number you set. It's whatever is left over after everyone else has been made whole.You've probably told yourself the arrangement is temporary. It was temporary in year two. It was temporary in year five.In this episode of the Wealthy Woman Lawyer® podcast, I take on owner compensation, which is the least discussed number in law firm ownership and the one that sets the ceiling on everything above it. I've been listening to the business podcasts this quarter, and two of them ran full episodes on how to compensate a law firm team. Both were useful. Neither one asked the question that comes first.So we're doing this in the right order. What you pay yourself, and then what you pay everyone else.I walk you through the four doors money reaches an owner through, and only one of them shows up on a pay stub. Then I'm going to ask you to add up all four for last year and divide by every hour you worked, including the Sunday evenings and the phone calls on the drive home. I've run that exercise with owners of firms doing well over a million dollars in revenue who found out they were the lowest paid professional in the building.We also get into why this is a growth problem rather than a self-care problem. An underpaid owner prices poorly, because her own compensation is the loudest evidence she has about what her time is worth. She builds a bonus plan for her team that only survives as long as she's willing to absorb the difference herself. And she builds a firm nobody could buy, because any competent purchaser will find the subsidy in an afternoon.Then I show you how to set your own number with math instead of waiting for permission from your profit and loss statement. There's homework at the end. Three steps and one date on the calendar.You are not the last line item. You are the reason there is a line at all. Go here to listen:LINKS TO LOVEHave you left us a review on Apple Podcasts yet? Women lawyers tell me all the time that they've been following me for years, so if you're one of them, please subscribe and leave a review. I would so appreciate it. Here's the link.No idea what you should be paying yourself, and you've been avoiding it for years? Book a call with me.  You'll fill out a brief application so we understand where you are and where you want to go, and then you can schedule a Zoom call. This is not a sales pitch. It's a real conversation about your firm, your vision, and the right next step for you.